Coping: Home is Where the Bills Are

I’ve been saving the best picture of the trip for this morning. It’s looking down at the dual suspension bridges of Tacoma on departure morning last week. With Tacoma Narrows Airport the flat spot in the upper right.

Click to enlarge.

Smoke from forest fires in Eastern Washington blew smoke all the way over into Montana.

As you can see left, the Cascades and Rockies were “smoky mountains” but the scenery wasn’t bad.

The old Beechcrate performed admirably, with performance helped by UPS’ing 50 pounds of excess clothing home. Two pair of cut-offs and a couple of short-sleeved shirts and I could travel the world, at least three seasons.

Saturday, I spent $100 on testing my gambling theory: Ran the $100 up to $367.50 before leaving the casino with my experiment money all gone. But I did narrow down the next round of experiments, now planned for the Peoplenomics.com cruise in early September.

Panama held down the ranch, although we did suffer one casualty: The washing machine has died – and this after repairing it not 2-months back. That becomes yet-another-project for our insurmountable to-do list.

In some ways, it is great to be home, sleep in our own bed – that kind of thing.

But on the other, living a dream vacation is pretty good, too.

One problem if you’re traveling this time of the year is heat.

Elaine solved that with a one-quart spray bottle of the sort you can pick up at the dollar store.

Filled with water, and with all the vents in the car or airplane open, you can spray yourself down pretty good and keep your cool nicely. No recommended for leather seats.

In our case, it was about 90 at times in the cockpit, even though we took off at 6:30 AM Sunday from Dodge City, KS. They had 102 yesterday (in our honor?) and today they’re staring at 104F by late afternoon.

Being home, I’ll start the process of catching up – and that’s always fun with a stack of bills and the usual junk mail to sort through. Emptying voicemail ought to be fun, too.

Hot weather seems to have settled in for summer here in Texas. Rain shows and mid 70s or cooler returned to Seattle almost as soon as we left.

Seattle has had 37.43 inches of rain over the past 365 days. The closest weather station to us reports 55.40 inches. That’s a far cry from the Texas drought of a couple of years back.

But climate drifts around a great deal…something easily exploited by political charlatans and non-profit fund-raisers.

Speaking of Climate Change…

OMG – there I went, again. Somehow a reader got the idea that I was anti-climate change. Which is not quite true.

What I AM is anti “Climate Change as a Taxation Scheme” and it’s coming, whether you like it, or not. The non-profits are already shaking down the weaker-minded of the middle class.

The REAL reason for climate change is obvious: Sawing down the Amazon rain forests and raping the hillsides of South America is a fine starting point. But, we don’t hear the climateers talking much about that. Nor is deforestation in Africa making the big headlines. Not in the corporate playbook, we imagine…

We also don’t hear about the massive land-clearing and trashing of Indonesia (Irian Jaya in particular) of a couple of years back..

Please notice that the UN is not mandating that the rain forests be restored and that rooftops be colorized in such a way as to avoid heat islanding, or any of the other OBVIOUS solutions that are readily at hand.

Instead we get the charlatans who don’t mention rain forests, but are of the same ilk as the “no borders” people and those who believe whatever this week’s popular media chant might be.

Life’s a lot easier if you don’t think.

Sadly, we run on data around here: Please refer to the highlighted yellow line for the “offishul” inconvenient truths:

Yes! In the past year 22,678 record highs were set.

But Ures truly won’t hide under the bed just yet, since 27,993 new lows were set, as well.

Don’t waste your time writing me about the monthly records, either. That’s because the data set is small and within bounds for normal noisy data. Scream elsewhere.

I’m sure that brainwashed climateers will take me to task for using full year data sets only. Earth averages things out. They will no doubt cling to the increase in high minimums without referencing to the continuing paving over of ‘Merica and heat islanding is the gift that never stops giving.

That’s why we get out and do our annual aerial survey just completed. We look at the new stuff that wasn’t there before…and there’s lots of it. Something like eight 100-car coal trains coming out of the Gillette, WY area are keeping the lights on in the Midwest.

The worse news is that after looking at the data, I’m rather easily convinced that it follows – to some extent – the comings and goings of solar output (heat from the Sun) which is evidenced in the following Space Weather Prediction Center chart:

The bottom line here is simple:

I am open to the idea of climate change. I am also open to the idea of demons, apparitions, ghosts, UFOs, and great conspiracies in government.

But in all of these cases, it comes down to the data – and a whole bunch of it, if’n you please.

And instead of whipping up “man made global warming” means an excuse to tax cars, increase taxes, and restrict people’s freedoms?

Get back to me when ruined rain forests have been restored under UN mandates in Africa, South America, and Indonesia, to name a few. End corporate exploitation of native peoples and theft of their land – oh, and did I mention their water?

In the meantime, data infers that the world isn’t ending and it’s doing what it always does with climate.

Change.

Cutting down the rain forests is likely a bigger deal than anyone thought. I mean besides the biodiversity consequences. The actual year of trashing is hard to pin down, however, because when the rain forests go, it is accompanied by huge land-waste fires which cause unbearable smoke, but which also reflects some heat back into space. Cools things…but then comes the heat in the future.

Reducing growth in the demand for commoditiesthat drive deforestation will be important to future successes,but so will increasing the productivity of currentlyused lands and directing agricultural expansioninto grasslands rather than forests. The spread ofbiofuel production, which would create a demand fordeforestation not linked to food, could create strongnew pressures on tropical forests. However, if recent successescan be duplicated in other tropical countries, wecan envision the end of deforestation in the next fewdecades. This would be a truly historic achievement.

Climate is very big – and when you cut down a rain forest (or 20) it takes a while for the changes to propagate through the complex system.

This means there is a fair bit of hysteresis in the climate discussion – another fact of analysis that few discuss. Basically, it’s the gap between when something is done (wreck rain forests and slash burn like hell) and when its results become evidence (changing weather) because of the “hidden variable” which is how long it takes the burning to end and the smoke to clear.

Releases gobs of sequestered carbon into the air, too. So I’m less inclined to punish the kids like my son in the 45 MPG Versa, so much as the corporate swill who incentivize the wholesale burnings of rain forests.

But that’s just me, you understand.

There’s this other view: That it’s all the guy in the Versa’s fault because without him trying to save money for retirements, corporations would not be scavenging the ends of the Earth for ways to screw people out of resource to fund the retirement account.

My head is beginning to hurt. Maybe it’s a lack of oxygen…

Who needs conspiracies about HAARP and its follow-ons (likely real, but smaller impacting) when we have Poulan’s, and Husqvarna’s Stihl’ing the world’s forests?

We ought to be more worried about registering chain saws than guns in the longer view.

Do “Smart Phones” Make People Dumber?

Pet theory of mine is they do.

Just about the time I was thinking about this as a rant this morning, in popped this from the I-Ching Inbox:

Smartphones emerged as a mass-market product less than a decade ago, yet already 46% of Americans have what might be called smartphone amnesia, agreeing with the statement “I can’t imagine my life without my smartphone.”

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Coping: Home is Where the Bills Are — 19 Comments

What is the I-Ching inbox? I use the I-Ching and have often wondered if there was a spirit of some sort inside of the book providing the amazing answers I often received. Is that spirit who corresponds with you via your I-Ching inbox?

Sooo glad you’re both back in the real world! I was surprised that a cockpit would get hot at altitude – even when it’s melting the asphalt on the ground. But I’m not a flyer in the private sense. I’ll submit to being groped and irradiated at 30,000 if I have to – but they DO have A/C on those planes.

I love the days I don’t have that damned phone in my pocket. A few months back I caught myself using the evil thing while at the farm having my morning coffee watching a beautiful sunrise. It stays in the truck now. Maybe it’s on, maybe not. Those who know (read count) call my Mom’s house and she can send the neighbor or hop her 85 year old self onto the 4 wheeler and come get me.

AND NOW FOR A MORE SERIOUS note 0i woke today and it felt good not to have a pain in my right neck to shoulder after last night taking 2 ibuprofen 200mg each , this pain came from a woman who i adore who came in and surprised me , and i practically jumped into attenion and knew right then i had pulled a muscle up there and all just felt ,oh i just pulled something and not again these things hurt and they take what seems like forever to go away- part 1-2015 a day in july

mojo: “…sorry, goeroge…cant do that, but…lets talk about it…i’ll paya $5 bux, and mow the lawn if you throw in a free airplane ride to chula vista?

goerge: “…sorry mojo, cant do it…but, lets talk about it… ya pays me 5$ bux, mow the lawn, i fly to chula vista if you at least pay me for the gas expense?…”

mojo: “…sorry goerge, cant do taht, but…lets talk about it….if you will ….., then i will ….”

BOTTOM LING IS, GREECE AND YUR-0-fer will never get anydeal done….but they will ‘talk about it’…

and if ANYNONE thinks any deal to stay in the oreo and cut pensions even 5% will ever work without massive roiting int the streets, they too are, well…lets talk about it…thier mental condition of course!!!

One more thing…I sometimes wish George Carlin could be alive today, breaking down the phraseology of our society today…He would have a hay day with the logic behind terms like “Intelligent Design”, Politically Correct, Smart Phone, Artificial Intelligence…and of course my favorite…religious freedom.

A computer in your pocket that you can make phone calls with has changed things in the last few years, more than the never static world climate has.

The climate, it’s such a long term thing that 300 years of records in a cycle that has been going on since the Himalayas were formed are just about useless. But those records are enough to start a new religion among us short lived beings.

Smartphones are simply tools like a shovel or a pickax. They virtually increase the IQ of users, and therefore the culture becomes increasingly complex to utilize that resource. Trying to simplify life in that kind of culture becomes a horribly complex task. Much different than in a country like Ecuador where the AVERAGE IQ is in the mid 80’s. Here the complexity comes from government workers who do not understand the purpose of the laws and regulations they are required to enforce. It also makes for an entertaining government when they try to come up with coherent policies to run the country. Ask that government worker why they need two color copies of your passport for this transaction, and they don’t have a clue. The main criteria for permanent residency is an easily counterfeited criminal records check from the home country.

The problem with low IQ is not that it’s necessarily bad. It’s that there is such a tremendous temptation for the intelligent people to exploit by creating complex systems which are not understood. This is becoming more and more prevalent in the USA, where I estimate 85% of the population cannot cast an intelligent vote, so they seek out the reason why they could never vote for such a candidate so they vote for the lesser of two evils. Each candidate is required to reveale some “dark” aspect of themselves for this purpose. Energetically, when you oppose something, they own you.

This is illustrated by my mother when she was in her 80’s she cast her first democratic vote for governor because the republican candidate looked like he was an alcoholic. He won anyway.

Two Things…You ask…”Do smart phones make us dumber?” That is like asking IS living next to and having access to a library Make a person dumber? We have access to information, interactive communication, etc? Why would that make us dumber.. In my world it makes me more efficient, more knowledgeable, and able to leap huge problems with a single click. It makes me a Superman compared to the day of yore.

Second…Why do you give Donald Trump the time of day? And now Ben “I don’t believe in evolution” Carson? Since he is a Doctor…how does that work? How does he explain the evolution of drug resistant pathogens, flu strains, etc.

And his overall views? The article you linked has him saying this….”“There’s no question that we are in the process in this country of giving away all of our values and principles for the sake of political correctness,”

Political correctness is just doing the right thing. Actually, it has nothing do do with politics…It’s just acknowledging that we are all an equal part of this earth…and stop with the anger, divisiveness and bias.

The values he is referring to, basically is promoting the continued ignorance and dumbing down of America. Values is about control and acting a certain way. They call it freedom…but it is really the opposite. I could go on and on about the sociology of Value systems and the role of religion in society, but I am sure I have a character count in the reply section…

Food is easy: I have asthma and when it got bad as a kid, I would go a week or two without eating….so since the advent of new treatments, I like to eat.
As to things that don’t work? Interesting article on exactly this point coming up Wed in Peoplenomics…
But fine quests tho